i believe it was you who asked me how i felt seeing joseph ratzinger come out on the logia of st. peter's, who i had known at that point for some 17 years, how did i feel about him becoming pope? i said i felt desperately sorry for him because the job is, in one sense, an impossible one, but i was also glad for him because the world was finally going to see the joseph ratzinger i knew, not the cartoon of him that had been spread over the past 20 years. i think that's part of what's reflected in this crowd today. benedict xvi has been the greatest papal preacher in almost 1,400 years, since pope gregory the great. he's a marvelous catechist, a teacher of christian truth. he distills extraordinary learning into simple, elegant phrases that communicate with people all over the world. so there's a somewhat bittersweet sense this may be the last time the world gets to hear this remarkable personality lay out the truth of christian faith as he's been given to understand it, but i'm also having a sense of gratitude that we had eight years to learn from a master teacher, and i think the w